31 Nights of Horror – Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th on Friday the 13th?! Oh, ya’ll wanted a twist? Go read someone else’s blog 😛 Where to start with this movie, it has everything. A pack of teens in the blossom of their youth, a secluded summer camp that was the site of a tragic death, a murderer hiding in the trees and picking people off, a severe thunderstorm on the eve when all hell breaks loose and all of this happening on a day already shrouded in superstition. What more could you want?

Camp Crystal Lake has been closed since the murder of two camp counselors in the year following the drowning of a young boy. Decades later on Friday the 13th, the camp is set to reopen and a group of teens are making their way out to spend the summer as camp counselors. One counselor, Annie, never makes it to camp and is murdered in the woods by an unseen attacker while hitching a ride. The other 6 teens and the camp owner, Steve are already at the camp and busy fixing it up for the season. The filmmakers capitalize on the eeriness of the surroundings with frequent panning over the placid lake and empty treeline. Nothing particularly scary happens but the mood is definitely being set. Steve has to head into town for supplies just as the weather starts to turn leaving the inexperienced campers on their own. One by one, the counselors are picked off by the same unseen attacker that targeted Annie. Completely isolated from the outside world with no ability to summon authorities, the teens are helpless. Steve, is killed on his way back to the camp, Alice (the final girl) sees headlights and thinks that it’s Steve returning to camp in the nick of time but it turns out to be Mrs. Pamela Voorhees – dun, dun, dun. A middle-aged woman in a crew neck sweater, not that scary and honestly pretty anti-climactic. Alice brings Mrs. Voorhees inside to get out of the storm and we soon find out that she is the mother of the young boy who drowned all of those years ago. We are getting suspicious at this point, she says it was the fault of the irresponsible teens who were supposed to be watching him (but were fornicating instead) and then she busts out the bowie knife, our suspicions are confirmed. Alice makes a break for it – Mrs. Voorhees gives chase and there are a few fight scenes. There is one point where she has Alice by the hair and is pile-driving her face into the sand – this woman can take a hit and we are pretty certain that Alice is gonna’ die. Alice grabs a machete and slices off Voorhees’ head, don’t ask me where the machete came from – I think they must just have them at summer camps? At least, that is what this movie led me to believe as a child. Alice then takes refuge in a canoe and drifts out onto the lake, she is found by the police in the morning but not before she hallucinates being dragged under water by a disfigured boy. This is the only time that we see Jason in the entire movie again, the filmmaker so expertly uses the fear of the unknown to build terror and drama.

Alice does actually survive and in the end asks the Sheriff what happened to the boy, nobody knows who she is referring to but she is sure that he was there. Dun, dun, dun. There are 12 total movies that are a part of this franchise, I only like parts I and II though I have seen them all. Jason is fascinating because honestly, he is just a regular guy in a hockey mask and it just proves that the worst monsters are mankind. I enjoyed the cast as well, they really seem just like normal teens and that added to the credibility of the wildly unbelievable plot. Definitely a classic!